Help Me Please

by Perry
(Atlantic,Iowa)

I am 40 years old and I did time in the army. I was in Texas when I was on bivouac, and I fell and damaged my right arm. That is when the drill sergeants started their crap, pushing me assaulting me, making me do night duty. This went on for 12 hours a day for a week, no time to myself.

One sergeant one night decided to throw a six pack at me, and cut my forehead open, but nothing happened to him. A week later I was leaving the PX and there was a car wreck, and a parent and one child died. To this day, I still see them. I don't eat right or sleep. My anger is out of control.

Response from Dr. DeFoore

Hello Perry, and thanks for writing your story on this site. It is clear that you have some symptoms of PTSD, especially from the car wreck you witnessed. You're a good person, and you want to be better so that you can have a good life.

Here's what I suggest:

1) Practice these these imagery processes for emotional healing to deal with the trauma from the car wreck. Imagery is powerful, and if you use it, it will definitely help you. In your mind's eye, go and get that younger you out of the traumatic situations, and comfort him.

2) Do the journaling processes on this page every day, and you will start to feel some relief from the anger.

Take good care of yourself, Perry. Eat well and regularly, exercise regularly and develop a positive spiritual focus. It sounds to me like you need those basics in place before you will be able to heal emotionally like you want to. Your body has to be healthy before you can be emotionally and mentally healthy. The imagery processes for emotional healing, for example, will not help you as much if at all, it your physical life is not stable.

My very best to you,

Dr. DeFoore

P.S. If you found this to be helpful, please consider making a donation to this site to support our mission.

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Jan 01, 2010
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To Perry
by: Wayne

Hey Perry, I agree with Bill, it does sound as if you are experiencing some aspects of PTSD. PTSD isn't crazy, it is where a person has some memories and feelings inside that are having a hard time getting out. Anger is not some bad or evil emotion but it is like all of the other emotions, it is just an indicator of how we are being affected by the outside world. Anger is the emotion that is telling us that we are being abused and the energy, when properly put to use, is designed to cause a change in the environment so that we are no longer being abused. The hard part with PTSD is that the P in PTSD stands for post or after the fact. In other words past memories and feelings affecting how we are interacting with the world today. It can be very hard to tell the difference between those past memories and feelings and today's experiences. One way to tell is when the emotions that you are experiencing are out of line with what is bugging you now. I mean when you feel like breaking out the M16 when what you really need is a water balloon, you probably are dealing with the past. How do you deal with the past? The objective is to be able to go to the past memories and feelings and allow yourself to actually feel what you would have really felt then. Things like fright, sadness, betrayal, anger, being made less than and so on. These feelings are in your body and they need out. Crying is an expression of these feelings. Beating the crap out of a pillow will allow you to bring your physical body into the picture and cause your muscles and organs to expend energy which triggers the emotional release. These feelings will not be comfortable but you won't die from them. Obviously you survived the event, you just have to go through the feelings you were too well trained to stuff away. You don't have to do it alone. There is the VET Centers which are connected to the Veteran's Administration. You can get counseling there and you can also ask about putting in a claim for any physical or emotional injuries. There are various kinds of support groups. You could even check out some of Bill DeFoore's materials on getting out feelings. These methods are tried, true and tested methods. Be patient with yourself. Pace going through the past. It didn't happen overnight and it most likely won't heal overnight. Remember to comfort yourself once in a while.

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